"The
Old Made Anew - Decor: Two cousins make furniture by
hand in the style of two or three centuries ago."

by Karol V. Menizie,
The Baltimore
Sun, Home & Family, 8/14/2000

"When you think of a woodworking shop, you don't usually imagine a
place where bird song outside is louder than the work going on inside.
But such a place is Hubbard Cabinetmakers in Butler, where two cousins
are building their future and a business on the furniture-making
traditions of the past.

One recent day, Fife Hubbard was soundlessly
carving naturalistic details in the ball-and-claw foot of one leg of a
small dressing table, while his cousin, Crawford Hubbard, carefully
painted carpenter's glue on the "breadboard" ends of a trestle
table top.

They [the Hubbards] are committed to using the
finest materials and workmanship, and the style in which they work is
firmly planted in the New England and mid-Atlantic styles of two to
three centuries ago. They create their own designs, and they make all
their own patterns. They use old tools when it matters. They each work
on one piece until it's complete.

When most people hear the word
"custom," they think of kitchen or bath cabinets, or storage
or entertainment units - and there are lots of companies making those.
In most of these cases, "custom" means made to fit, not
individually designed. The kind of work the Hubbards do, which often
involves hours of intricate hand-carving, is quite different.

"That kind of [historic] craft tradition
is very rare these days - a custom cabinetry that really is
custom," says Mayer Rus, a former Baltimorean who is
editor-in-chief of Interior Design magazine. "That hand-craft
tradition seems to be gradually dying out." "It's not easy to
make a successful business that way," he says, "which makes it
all the more rare."

But the Hubbards find it works just fine.
Clearly there's a keen artistic sense at work in both cousins - a fine
eye for line and proportion. But they have a sense of how to manage
their artisan enterprise.

"I could literally spend 40 hours on one
of these," Fife says, lightly caressing the wooden palm muscles and
tendons he has carved in the claw of a ball-and-claw foot. "But
it's usually 7 to 10 hours."

Hubbard pieces are not inexpensive, but they
are reasonable for the amount of work that goes into them.

Each of the early New England cabinetmaking shops had its own style,
Fife Hubbard says. The Dunlap style features pieces that are both
sturdy and exuberant, a tradition to which the Hubbards happily adhere.
And one that their clients, living in a world of impersonal e-commerce
and declining standards of service, can appreciate.

"It's very rare that you find anyone who
takes so much interest in the piece," says Toni Griswold, who had
the Hubbard firm build two pieces for her nearby home - a partner's desk
for her husband and a front hall table. "They really want to please
the client - it's [a trait that is] just so hard to come by these
days." Griswold was touched that the Hubbards used wood from an old
house near her home in the new furniture.

The Hubbards always work closely with clients
to develop a design. They visit the home and check out the site of the
proposed piece, and then submit sketches - sometimes many sketches. The
process from design to delivery can take weeks or even months.

"There are three aspects to
cabinetry," says long-time Baltimore County resident Dorsey Brown:
"design, craftsmanship and finishing. All three are distinct and
fine things that the Hubbards have mastered.""